Noordstream Sabotage

[Broomstick]

There's an old saying among reporters and police that when an old restaurant burns down at night, it's almost always arson; and when a woman is found murdered, it's almost always a husband or boyfriend who did it.

Almost always.

While I agree that the US had motivation that does not automatically imply guilt unless you yourself are biased against the US and simply think the US is always guilty of everything.

Then a local reporter with an impeccable track record, who has been covering the crime beat for over 50 years, writes an article where he claims that according to sources in law enforcement, they're pretty certain the jilted creep did it and they're also sure how he did it and why.

This is where your analogy falls down. Hersh's credentials are NOT impeccable. He has developed a habit of publishing stories that rely on a single anonymous source that is impossible to verify. Which in the case of Nordstream, he has done once again. We don't know if that source he is claiming in "law enforcement" is an actual homicide detective or simply the night janitor. While anonymous sources are useful in good journalism they are not used in isolation but rather a reporter would make an attempt to provide other supporting evidence. Hersh does not do so in this case. He wants us to just take his word on it. So I ask... why? Why should I take just his word on it, where is the supporting evidence?

If you have actual evidence of a particular party being guilty I'll happily accept it, but so far I haven't seen it or been pointed to it. Last I heard there wasn't anything definitive. If that's changed by all means, provide a cite, a link, something that points to it.

(and the gullible morons who believe the jilted creep's story that he had nothing to do with the killing)

It's not being "gullible" to ask for evidence when a crime has occurred, and the Nordstream bombing was definitely a crime. Otherwise, your convicting based on prejudice rather than facts. Where are the facts?

I'm "obsessed" with the US being guilty in the same way I'm "obsessed" with the sun rising in the east this morning: That's what it has always done before and there's no reason to think this time was any different. I don't hesitate to pin the blame on other countries when they behave in thuggish fashion. For example, should one or more of the natural gas pipelines from Norway be destroyed, it'll be obvious the Russians did it.

Um... there could be NO other possibilities for such an occurrence? Really?

If you said the US was a suspect I would agree - the US certainly could be the guilty party. Again, if you have something beyond the word of anonymous source, if you could back up what that source said, it would be one thing but so far you haven't. You have resorted to name-calling - "hysterical", "morons", "gullible" - which is a time-honored tradition here, but name-calling alone doesn't win an argument. Facts do. What, beyond Hersh's anonymous source, supports the accusation that the US blew up the pipeline?

At the time of the explosions neither Nordstream was even in use (although obviously there was still gas in them). They had already been shut down due to reasons related to the Ukrainian-Russian war. What about the possible motive of the owners of the Baltic pipeline, which opened the day after the explosions and essentially is filling the role that Nordstream used to? There's a motivation for you: money. Make sure the competition can't come back.

The US did not like Nordstream, but there are a lot of things in the world the US doesn't like, that doesn't mean the US is blowing up everything its government disapproves of. The usual US response is sanctions. Yet the sanctions imposed by the US because of Nordstream had been lifted in 2021 in order to maintain positive relations with Germany and other nations. Cutting off Nordstream and risking that an ally will spend a winter freezing in the dark does not make much sense, particularly not an ally hosting the extremely-important-to-US-interests Ramstein Airbase. Which does not rule out the US doing something stupid, of course, but the US government usually isn't that level of idiot. The US might not like Nordstream but it did have some interest in supplies of natural gas being available to one of its most crucial foreign outposts, especially the one near this new war that broke out in Europe.

Which neatly explains why republicans love poot-poot so much.

They love Putin because Hillary and her dead-enders still claim he's the reason she shit the bed so hard in 2016 and lost to a white supremacist game show host. In other words because they're as spiteful as they are stupid.

No, it's because the Republicans have been leaning fascist for a couple decades now and love authoritarians. That was true well before 2016. You are correct they are spiteful and stupid.

Oh, and cut the bullshit about Hersh using only one source. He quoted one source, but he always has more than one. By your logic, Nixon's White House had nothing to do with Watergate, since Bob Woodward kept his main source's identity secret for 30 years.

Except, while it is true that the identity of Deep Throat remained secret for a very long time that is not the ONLY thing that supported accusations in the Watergate case. There was other evidence and other sources supporting that anonymous source. Indeed, some of those other bits of evidence were provided by Hersh himself, including reporting in The New Times in 1973 about the hush money paid to the burglers. It was not JUST what Deep Throat said, Deep Throat's accusations were the beginning, not the end and conclusion, of the reporting and investigating.

Again - where is the evidence regarding Nordstream? Not supposition, not bias, not your petty hatred of the US, where is the evidence. The accusation is fine, but it must be supported by more than just a reporter citing an anonymous source. If this source is so fine and credible it should be able to point to facts that can be independently corroborated and verified (as Deep Throat did for Watergate). The Nordstream sabotage was a crime, crimes have evidence. Granted obtaining evidence for something that occurred underwater is a bit more difficult than obtaining evidence in the parking lot of a store or business, but there are governments involved here, governments with resources and means to investigate what actually happened.

I mean, even the fucking Russians have stated: "We cannot rule out any possibility right now. Obviously, there is some sort of destruction of the pipe. Before the results of the investigation, it is impossible to rule out any option." (Dmitry Peskov, Putin's goddamn press secretary, shortly after the incident came to light). Which means fucking Russia is behaving in a more rational and level-headed manner than you are, and they're the ones with skin in the game seeing as they're part owners of the goddamned pipe and it was a significant revenue source for them. Of course, the Russians have accused both the UK and the US, but Russia accuses those two of pretty much everything. Toilet in the Kremlin won't flush? Obviously it's the US at fault and not the epic levels of bullshit flowing out of Moscow these days.

You believe it's the US at fault. That's fine, you have a right to your opinion. If you want to convince the rest of us, though, you'll need some facts. Support that claim.

[Dominus Atheos]

Snopes factcheck on seymore butts article:

https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/02/10/ ... -sabotage/

Claim That US Blew up Nord Stream Pipelines Relies on Anonymous Source
Seymour Hersh presents factual background material, but his case for conspiracy is held together by a seemingly omnipotent anonymous source.

On Feb. 8, 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published on Substack a theoretically blockbuster revelation: A covert U.S. military operation in June 2022 was responsible for the September 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines that run natural gas from Russia to Germany. The claim has been met with skepticism by other journalists, denials from U.S. government officials, and credulous promotion in Russia.

In this article, Snopes explores the controversy, separating the factual background in Hersh's reporting that provides an air of plausibility to his blockbuster claims from the anonymously sourced assertions of a single person that hold — however weakly — those claims together. By email, we asked Hersh to respond to criticism that his article's claims are based on a single source. We also asked if any undisclosed parties verified or vetted any of that source's assertions as part of his reporting. In response, he told Snopes, "I protect my sources."

Who is Seymour Hersh?
Hersh's most notable work has exposed government and military abusers and cover-ups, and his past work has revealed U.S. military abuse. He uncovered the U.S. military's role in the My Lai Massacre — work that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1970. He described the U.S.'s role in a covert bombing campaign in Cambodia. He reported on the U.S. military's mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War.

His later work, however, has been controversial and widely panned by journalists for promoting conspiratorial claims that hinge on dubious anonymous sources or speculation.

Examples of controversial claims made later in Hersch's career include allegations that Turkey, not Russia, was behind a chemical weapons attack in Syria, and that Trump authorized an airstrike in Syria in response to Russia's alleged use of chemical weapons, even while knowing Russia did not use such weapons.

His work, increasingly, has become popular with Russian state-controlled media. Like the aforementioned stories, his most recent article alleging a U.S. attack on a Russian-owned pipeline has seen heavy Russian promotion, as reported by Insider:

In Russia, Hersh's story was immediately greeted with a sense of vindication. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state outlet RIA Novosti that Hersh's article was not a surprise in Moscow and said it would bring "consequences" for the US.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova seized on the article, citing the multiple times that Russia suggested the US was behind the attack, also without evidence. Russian politician Konstantin Kosachev wrote on Telegram that … the reporting is "impossible to dismiss."

Those remarks were shared by TV personality Vladimir Solovyev, arguably Russia's leading propagandist, to his 1.3 million Telegram followers.

What Does Hersh Allege About the Nord Stream Pipeline?
Hersch's Substack post alleges that the U.S. Navy, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, conducted a covert operation using a NATO training exercise as cover to sabotage the Russian-owned Nord Stream pipelines by using explosives and a sonar-based remote detonation device:

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines …

The story builds this argument by mixing factual background information about past covert operations and recent statements made by politicians about their disdain for the pipeline with a wildly engrossing narrative based on the often secondhand testimony of a single person Hersh describes only as "a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning."

What Are the Uncontested Facts?
Stripped of the bold claims of Hersh's single source, his report contains several factual statements or anecdotes that superficially support his narrative. There has, indeed, been bipartisan opposition to the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines, which would have transported Russian natural gas to Germany. There were concerns, prior to and directly following the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, that such a pipeline could make German support for a unified response to Russian aggression in Ukraine harder to come by.

It's true, as well, that Operation Ivy Bell was a U.S. Navy-run covert operation against the former Soviet Union that used deep sea divers within Soviet territorial waters. It is also true that NATO held a training exercise in the Baltic sea in June 2022 that involved Navy diving units.

Finally, it is true that senior government officials in and outside the Biden administration explicitly stated their support for "ending" in some way the operation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. On Feb. 7, a week before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Biden told reporters that, "If Russia invades … there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."


Both the White House and the CIA have categorically denied Hersh's claims.

Claims All Stem From One Source
Hersh uses the testimony of one person, mixed alongside that aforementioned historical or political commentary, as evidence for every significant aspect of the alleged conspiracy. Here is the first mention of that source:

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

The source is first described as "a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning" and a second time as "the source with direct knowledge of the process," indicating these were the same person. All other references to a source refer, in the singular, to "the" source. This source, for example, is responsible for the claim that Biden created a task force to look into options to destroy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline:

In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of a newly formed task force—men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments—and asked for recommendations about how to respond to Putin's impending invasion. …

What became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the President.

The source, evidently a legal expert, is also behind the claim that Biden's actions at a news conference created some sort of loophole that allowed a covert sabotage mission to go ahead without notifying high-ranking congressional leaders:

According to the source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline "no longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced that we knew how to do it."

Under the law, the source explained, "There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress. All they had to do now is just do it—but it still had to be secret. The Russians have superlative surveillance of the Baltic Sea."

This same source, evidently, is knowledgeable about internal CIA, State Department, and deep sea diver politics in addition to the specific deliberations held by a secret interagency panel. He is, in Hersh's reporting, the sole basis for claims of Norway's knowledge of and involvement in the operation:

Norway was the perfect place to base the mission. … Norway was one of the original signatories of the NATO Treaty in 1949, in the early days of the Cold War. Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a committed anti-communist, who served as Norway's prime minister for eight years before moving to his high NATO post, with American backing, in 2014.

He was a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since. "He is the glove that fits the American hand," the source said.

Back in Washington, planners knew they had to go to Norway. "They hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration," the source said. They also could be trusted to keep the mission secret. …

"The best divers with deep diving qualifications are a tight community, and only the very best are recruited for the operation and told to be prepared to be summoned to the CIA in Washington," the source said.

The Norwegians and Americans had a location and the operatives, but there was another concern: any unusual underwater activity in the waters off Bornholm might draw the attention of the Swedish or Danish navies, which could report it. …

The Norwegians joined the Americans in insisting that some senior officials in Denmark and Sweden had to be briefed in general terms …. "What they were told and what they knew were purposely different," the source told me. … The Norwegians proposed [that BALTOPS 22] would be the ideal cover to plant the mines.

The only other source mentioned in Hersh's report is a retired professor with no connection to, or ability to confirm the existence of, any potential covert operation in the Baltics. His information, regarding a sonor-activated detonator, does not confirm the existence of the operation, and is speculative.

The Bottom Line
This story, when deconstructed, is merely a pile of purported second-hand information allegedly collected by someone connected in some unknown way to deliberations of a highly secret, multi-agency task force. Such a story falls prey to the same criticisms of other more recent work published by Hersh, which has relied on similarly questionable anonymous sources.

If the U.S. did conspire to destroy the Nord Stream pipeline, Hersh's reporting has not proved that case. Hersh has, instead, made a very successful blog post that essentially transcribes a compelling story someone unknown to the general public told him.

Hersch was asked by the Russian news agency TASS about the identity of his source. He told them that, "It's a person, who, it seems, knows a lot about what's going on."

Choice quotes from recent seymore butts interview:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1625 ... 41984.html

Seymour Hersh in new interview about his Nord Stream post:

"I wouldn't even think to take a story like this to the New York Times, they have decided that the Ukraine war is going to be won by Ukraine and that's what its readers get, so be it"

"The stories I have been getting about the war, particularly beginning in fall and that's what gets interesting, have been pretty dire. I think the end is just a question of time, right now it is a question of people Zelenskyy wants to kill of his own people. It's gonna be over"

This Hersh interview is the gift that keeps on giving:

“I think it's going to undercut NATO, which I always found to be supremely useless”

"We're working very closely with the Norwegians on this, who by the way have increased their production of oil to Europe by double. I don't know the exact numbers but it's gone up at least double, maybe even more than two and a half times as much now without the pipeline."

Apparently Nord Stream was an oil pipeline now according to Hersh. Also these numbers are completely made up like the rest of his post.

Norway piped gas exports rise 3.3% in 2022, set record for Germany
Norwegian pipeline gas exports rose 3.3% in 2022, just shy of an all-time high though record volumes were sent to Germany, as the Nordic country stepped up deliveries to replace Russian supply, pipeli…
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 023-01-23/

“The Norwegian government has claimed that one of the ships that you mentioned in your article that was involved in the preparation of this was not present at the time of the exercises. What do you make of Norway's denial?”

“You know, let me tell you something about Nicaragua.”

He claims that the CIA flew in a compression chamber and also "the Alta, the ship was there I mean that's just such a stupid lie"

We know the Alta was NOT present at BALTOPS22.
Hersh makes it sound like the Norwegians were geniuses and "found the shallowest part of the Baltic Sea", something the US never could have done without Norwegian assistance.

If only charts with the seafloor depth existed.

Going back to his claim that it was specifically the "M350 Alta" that was used.

This image is from July 24th 2022, when the M350 Alta was at the scrapyard in Hanøytangen just North of Bergen.

[Ralin]

I'm still curious which part of the American intelligence community Elfdart contends Stoltenberg was cooperating with as a teenager.

[wautd]

I'm "obsessed" with the US being guilty in the same way I'm "obsessed" with the sun rising in the east this morning: That's what it has always done before and there's no reason to think this time was any different.

In other words, your hatred towards the US made you so ideologically blind that you equate suspicion with guilt, no matter the (lack of) evidence. Thanks for clearing that up, tankie

[Solauren]

I'm still curious which part of the American intelligence community Elfdart contends Stoltenberg was cooperating with as a teenager.

the S.D.I

He was recruited by a man named Stewie

[Lord Revan]

The motivation of the Norwegian government seems odd here too, unlike what the article implies Norway and Sweden (as well as Denmark) are actually in very good terms with each other with both the Nordic Council and Nordic Passport Union having been a thing since the 1950s.

While there's currently restrictions with passport free travel Norway wouldn't want to risk their relationship with Sweden by performing a covert military operation so close to Swedish borders without informing the Swedish government in full first (and for obvious reasons the Swedish government would most likely veto blowing up the pipe so near to their borders).

While it's not impossible that USA is responsible, the form that suggestion takes currently raises more questions then it answers.

[LadyTevar]

It's sounding more and more like Hersh is pulling shit out of his ass.

[Elfdart]

As for Seymour Hersh himself, his track record is pretty ironclad.

Yes, he's done some very good investigative journalism, even won a Pulitzer and a bunch of other shiny trophies. He's also dropped the occasional turd, too, which should surprise no one because no one can be right all the time.

I mean, claiming Assad did NOT use chemical weapons on civilians is, at this point, an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof, which is not forthcoming.

So Hersh is expected to prove a negative now?

For the record, Hersh didn't claim that Assad absolutely didn't use the gas at Douma -just that it wasn't a certainty and that the Obama regime's claims that only Assad had such weapons was false:

LINK

The joint chiefs also knew that the Obama administration’s public claims that only the Syrian army had access to sarin were wrong. The American and British intelligence communities had been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were developing chemical weapons. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort’. (According to a Defense Department consultant, US intelligence has long known that al-Qaida experimented with chemical weapons, and has a video of one of its gas experiments with dogs.)

Obama agreed somewhat, since he called off the air strikes his underlings were hell bent on inflicting on Syria:

The Atlantic

Obama was also unsettled by a surprise visit early in the week from James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, who interrupted the President’s Daily Brief, the threat report Obama receives each morning from Clapper’s analysts, to make clear that the intelligence on Syria’s use of sarin gas, while robust, was not a “slam dunk.” He chose the term carefully. Clapper, the chief of an intelligence community traumatized by its failures in the run-up to the Iraq War, was not going to overpromise, in the manner of the onetime CIA director George Tenet, who famously guaranteed George W. Bush a “slam dunk” in Iraq.

I can't wait for the fucktards in this thread to start calling Obama, Shedd and Clapper "tankies", "Assadists", "Putinists" or all of the above.

Assertions that Jewish money runs American politics is a bad look (the truth is just plain money runs a lot of American politics and the source doesn't matter).

Pointing that many prominent donors to Hillary's campaign are pro-Israel Jews from New York (and that they're hostile to Iran or other enemies of Israel) is not anti-Semitic, any more than pointing out that prominent donors in Florida are Cubans who are hostile to Cuba and other nations in this hemisphere with left-wing governments is "anti-Cuban". Insinuating that Hersh (who is Jewish) is a Jew-baiter is awfully rich. You're really clutching at straws here, aren't you?

In 2006 (April 17th issue of the The New Yorker) he claimed that the US was contemplating a nuclear strike on Iran which, honestly, helped no one and nothing and was apparently unsupported by facts - in other words, with Bush as PotUS at that point, he doesn't just criticize Democrats. He's got a real bug up his ass about this notion that the US is looking for ways to foment an open war with Iran which, as far as I can tell, is unique to him and without credible support.

They contemplate all kinds of things. And for the record, the US Government has committed a number of acts of war against Iran over the years -from blockades to assassinations to blowing away civilian jetliners to arming not one, not two but THREE different armies of religious fanatics to murder Iranians. If Iran had done a fraction of these atrocities against us, there would be millions of dead Iranians in retaliation. In other words, we've always been openly at war with Eastasia Persia.

His denial that bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11 is another not credible position, and he claims reports of bin Laden's death are lies, all lies - without providing independently verifiable evidence of that claim, just claiming one anonymous source without any other supporting evidence. He casts doubt that the Skripnal poisoning case is a Kremlin hit despite other examples of the Kremlin assassinating people in the UK.

He doesn't deny Al Qaeda did it, he just doesn't think Bin Laden himself masterminded the 9/11 attacks:

We end up ruminating about 9/11, perhaps because it is another narrative ripe for deconstruction by sceptics. Polling shows that a significant proportion of the American public believes there is more to the truth. These doubts have been reinforced by the declassification of the suppressed 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report last year undermining the version that a group of terrorists acting independently managed to pull off the attacks. The implication is that they may well have been state-sponsored with the Saudis potentially involved.

Hersh tells me: “I don’t necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. We really don’t have an ending to the story. I’ve known people in the [intelligence] community. We don’t know anything empirical about who did what”. He continues: “The guy was living in a cave. He really didn’t know much English. He was pretty bright and he had a lot of hatred for the US.

You know, I realize you're just rattling off bullet points from Hersh's Wikipedia page, which "Philip Cross" and other Bellingcat trolls have been doing their manly best to vandalize recently, but they're as sloppy as they are dishonest. They cite an interview in The Independent as "proof" of the second-hand bullshit claims you're reposting here. There's one problem: "Philip Cross" & Co. are trying to pull a Dershowitz -which is to say, posting a source they say supports their claim, knowing full well that it doesn't and knowing most people aren't going to bother following the breadcrumbs through the forest.

Yes, he's done some good journalism. Other times he just wants you to take his word for it. I'm sorry, that's not how good, solid reporting is done. Admittedly, good solid reporting is not as common as we'd all like, but Hersh, while capable of awesome reporting, does not always deliver.

His track record stands up a hell of a lot better than the records of his attackers.

It’s a Conspiracy! How to Discredit Seymour Hersh
The veteran investigative journalist debunked the official version of the bin Laden killing—now there’s a rush to smear him.

Lessons From the Thinnest of Seymour Hersh’s Thinly Sourced Claims
The veteran journalist tracked down the one man who could link the Nixon White House to the illegal bombing of Cambodia.

LAPDOGS, REDUX: HOW THE PRESS TRIED TO DISCREDIT SEYMOUR HERSH’S BOMBSHELL REPORTING ON CIA DOMESTIC SPYING

And when it comes to the hysterical responses to Hersh, I'm reminded of Claud Cockburn's sage advice:

Questioning a claim is not being "hysterical". Asking for independently verifiable facts is not being "hysterical".

The Nordstream 2 claim made by Hersh relies on ONE source, anonymous, and does not have additional supporting and verifiable facts. That is not good journalism. That is speculation. There's nothing inherently wrong with speculation but until it is verified it can not and should not be claimed as facts.

Only one source?

[Broomstick]

So Hersh is expected to prove a negative now?

If he wants to make a claim that something didn't happen he needs to poke holes in the evidence other people bring to say it did happen. This is not a difficult concept, as an example defense attorneys use the technique in court every day.

Obama agreed somewhat, since he called off the air strikes his underlings were hell bent on inflicting on Syria

In other words - Obama acted as a wise commander-in-chief should, listening to all parties and keeping the warhawks under control.

The Atlantic

Obama was also unsettled by a surprise visit early in the week from James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, who interrupted the President’s Daily Brief, the threat report Obama receives each morning from Clapper’s analysts, to make clear that the intelligence on Syria’s use of sarin gas, while robust, was not a “slam dunk.” He chose the term carefully. Clapper, the chief of an intelligence community traumatized by its failures in the run-up to the Iraq War, was not going to overpromise, in the manner of the onetime CIA director George Tenet, who famously guaranteed George W. Bush a “slam dunk” in Iraq.

I can't wait for the fucktards in this thread to start calling Obama, Shedd and Clapper "tankies", "Assadists", "Putinists" or all of the above.

Listing to his intelligence branch is the sign of a reasonable president who is listening to both facts and uncertainty. Which is quite different than your statements about hating the US and assuming guilt from the get go, which is bigotry.

Assertions that Jewish money runs American politics is a bad look (the truth is just plain money runs a lot of American politics and the source doesn't matter).

Pointing that many prominent donors to Hillary's campaign are pro-Israel Jews from New York (and that they're hostile to Iran or other enemies of Israel) is not anti-Semitic, any more than pointing out that prominent donors in Florida are Cubans who are hostile to Cuba and other nations in this hemisphere with left-wing governments is "anti-Cuban". Insinuating that Hersh (who is Jewish) is a Jew-baiter is awfully rich. You're really clutching at straws here, aren't you?

Not at all.

"Self-loathing Jew" is a definite thing.

Sure, there are wealthy Jews who make political donations, but it's a leap from there to stating Jews run the country. That's the key point, not that there are Jewish people who are pro-Israel participating in the political process as the American citizens they are, but that Hersh is claiming they run the country, which they do not. Especially since there are plenty of million and billionaires of other religious/ethnic backgrounds who donate far more money in total than Jewish people do. Why does no one accuse the Cubans of running the country because of their campaign contributions to the Bush family's political endeavors?

But please, do keep repeating statements that have long been used against the Jewish community, it makes you look like a kneejerk bigot.

They contemplate all kinds of things. And for the record, the US Government has committed a number of acts of war against Iran over the years -from blockades to assassinations to blowing away civilian jetliners to arming not one, not two but THREE different armies of religious fanatics to murder Iranians. If Iran had done a fraction of these atrocities against us, there would be millions of dead Iranians in retaliation. In other words, we've always been openly at war with Eastasia Persia.

No, only since the 1979 revolution. And the name of the country is "Iran", not Persia. Iran requested in the 1930's that other nations call it Iran rather than Persia and I think we should respect that request, don't you?

His denial that bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11 is another not credible position, and he claims reports of bin Laden's death are lies, all lies - without providing independently verifiable evidence of that claim, just claiming one anonymous source without any other supporting evidence. He casts doubt that the Skripnal poisoning case is a Kremlin hit despite other examples of the Kremlin assassinating people in the UK.

He doesn't deny Al Qaeda did it, he just doesn't think Bin Laden himself masterminded the 9/11 attacks:

We end up ruminating about 9/11, perhaps because it is another narrative ripe for deconstruction by sceptics. Polling shows that a significant proportion of the American public believes there is more to the truth. These doubts have been reinforced by the declassification of the suppressed 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report last year undermining the version that a group of terrorists acting independently managed to pull off the attacks. The implication is that they may well have been state-sponsored with the Saudis potentially involved.

Hersh tells me: “I don’t necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. We really don’t have an ending to the story. I’ve known people in the [intelligence] community. We don’t know anything empirical about who did what”. He continues: “The guy was living in a cave. He really didn’t know much English. He was pretty bright and he had a lot of hatred for the US.

I notice you only addressed one of my points, but whatever - cherry-picking is a thing.

First, a "significant proportion" of the American public believes in a lot of bullshit, from flu-shots giving people the flu to the notion Trump is a wonderful human being. Citing "a significant portion" of the public believes something is no support at all for a particular position.

State-sponsored? That's rather at odds with the Saudi government exiling bin Laden, but maybe it's four-dimensional chess at work. We actually DO "know empirically" some of what happened. I fail to see how either "living in a cave" or not knowing much English proves bin Ladin wasn't a prime mover here. English is not required for planning mayhem, what a stupid-ass statement for anyone to make.

You know, I realize you're just rattling off bullet points from Hersh's Wikipedia page, which "Philip Cross" and other Bellingcat trolls have been doing their manly best to vandalize recently, but they're as sloppy as they are dishonest.

You don't seem to grasp that I have actually been alive for over half a century and remember some of this shit as it happened and more information was made available to the general public.

Yes, he's done some good journalism. Other times he just wants you to take his word for it. I'm sorry, that's not how good, solid reporting is done. Admittedly, good solid reporting is not as common as we'd all like, but Hersh, while capable of awesome reporting, does not always deliver.

His track record stands up a hell of a lot better than the records of his attackers.

Questioning his claims is not "attacking" him.

Pointing out errors is not "attacking" him.

An investigative journalist is only as good as his last article. Saying "but he was right in 1970!" does not provide support for what he says in 2022.

[LadyTevar]

His denial that bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11 is another not credible position, and he claims reports of bin Laden's death are lies, all lies - without providing independently verifiable evidence of that claim, just claiming one anonymous source without any other supporting evidence. He casts doubt that the Skripnal poisoning case is a Kremlin hit despite other examples of the Kremlin assassinating people in the UK.

He doesn't deny Al Qaeda did it, he just doesn't think Bin Laden himself masterminded the 9/11 attacks:

We end up ruminating about 9/11, perhaps because it is another narrative ripe for deconstruction by sceptics. Polling shows that a significant proportion of the American public believes there is more to the truth. These doubts have been reinforced by the declassification of the suppressed 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report last year undermining the version that a group of terrorists acting independently managed to pull off the attacks. The implication is that they may well have been state-sponsored with the Saudis potentially involved.

Hersh tells me: “I don’t necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. We really don’t have an ending to the story. I’ve known people in the [intelligence] community. We don’t know anything empirical about who did what”. He continues: “The guy was living in a cave. He really didn’t know much English. He was pretty bright and he had a lot of hatred for the US.

I notice you only addressed one of my points, but whatever - cherry-picking is a thing.

First, a "significant proportion" of the American public believes in a lot of bullshit, from flu-shots giving people the flu to the notion Trump is a wonderful human being. Citing "a significant portion" of the public believes something is no support at all for a particular position.

State-sponsored? That's rather at odds with the Saudi government exiling bin Laden, but maybe it's four-dimensional chess at work. We actually DO "know empirically" some of what happened. I fail to see how either "living in a cave" or not knowing much English proves bin Ladin wasn't a prime mover here. English is not required for planning mayhem, what a stupid-ass statement for anyone to make.

Not only is English NOT REQUIRED for planning mayhem, especially in a nation where English is NOT the FIRST LANGUAGE or even the PREFERRED LANGUAGE, you're missing out on the same things that the CIA missed about Bin Laden's actions.

Muhammad's first revelation was an event described in Islamic tradition as taking place in AD 610, during which the Islamic prophet Muhammad was visited by the angel Gabriel, who revealed to him the beginnings of what would later become the Qur'an. The event took place in a cave called Hira, located on the mountain Jabal an-Nour near Mecca.

Bin Laden was echoing Mohammed, "taking his solitude" in a cave, spreading his first broadcasts from the cave. Muslims who knew the story got the imagery. Westerners did not. HERSH is missing the point here, and then going on to double down with his bigoted claim about "not speaking English". If you're trying to be Mohammed's Second Coming, you're going to speak the language of the People, not the Foreigners you're wanting to kill.

To me, this means that Hersh is operating from a false viewpoint, and it calls into question not only his conclusions, but also his mental state and the reasons behind his attempts to cast blame for Nordstrom.
I again believe Hersh's only reason for this accusation is to get one last Hurrah before fading into obscurity in a nursing home.

[Coop D'etat]

My god Elfdart, Sy Hersh is notorious for sourcing claims from single sources. They used to not show up in his articles in reputable outfits like the New Yorker because his editors wouldn't let him. Guess what happens when he no longer has editors.

[Lord Revan]

A single unnamed source especially if the person goes out of their way to not name the source or provide backing evidence is a huge red flag. The "Follow the Money" line often linked with Watergate Scandal didn't mean "find a way to blame the USA government about this no matter how flimsy or far fetched the link is" but rather it meant "follow the paper trail(aka the 'money') to the backing evidence".

Could the USA Government be behind the pipeline sabotage, it's possible, though there's not really evidence pointing it being likely and certainly none that would claim it to be certain, since in the end only Russia would benefit from that action in the long term.

[wautd]

The pipeline was economically as good as dead anyway. Putin might be just as well behind the sabotage. Instead of closing the valves (with the risk of paying hefty fines for breaking the delivery contracts), blowing it up gives him plausible deniability. It can be seen as a hidden threat, because what would stop him for sabotaging the gas pipes and internet cables from other countries?

Putin weaponized gas supply to Europe, using it as a blackmailing tool. That weapon is now pretty much gone. Sure, he can still sell to China, but without the competition of Europe, China can ask for much lower prices. I also don't think that other countries will be interested in Russian gas in the near future when they know that Putin can and will use it as a blackmailing tool.

I got to thank Putin for catalyzing the transition of green power in Europe though. I'm planning to install solar panels this year myself.

[Ralin]

Anyone else still curious what part of the American intelligence community Stoltenberg was working with as a teenager?

Come on Elfdart, tell us. If your source needs to remain anonymous that's okay. We understand.

[LadyTevar]

Anyone else still curious what part of the American intelligence community Stoltenberg was working with as a teenager?

Come on Elfdart, tell us. If your source needs to remain anonymous that's okay. We understand.

I'm still waiting for Elfdart to explain why bin Laden would be using ENGLISH when he was calling for Jihad.

[Ralin]

I'm still waiting for Elfdart to explain why bin Laden would be using ENGLISH when he was calling for Jihad.

I'm guessing because not knowing English would make it harder for him to go over stuff like flight training regulations, read descriptions of US airport security procedures, etc? And just in general speaking the closest thing the world has to an international language is an important skill for anyone trying to run an international organization or franchise.

I know the obvious answer is "He had people for that," but an effective leader would want to be able to familiarize himself with those details to make sure he understood everything. I suppose. And from what I remember it is true that Al-Qaeda was not generally speaking a highly effective organization and got pretty lucky pulling off 9/11.

[Gandalf]

A good way to think about English is that while it's far from everyone's first language, it's a lot of people's second.

So an announcement in English also leaves you less vulnerable to bad translators.

[AniThyng]

A good way to think about English is that while it's far from everyone's first language, it's a lot of people's second.

So an announcement in English also leaves you less vulnerable to bad translators.

Yeah I don't know why many people don't seem to grasp this point when it comes to English. "Broken English" is probably the most widespread language in the world. Mandarin may have more absolute speakers but that's concentrated in China and east Asia, not nearly everywhere on earth.

[Ralin]

Yeah. So by itself inability to speak and understand English doesn't mean that someone can't have a successful career as an international terrorist mastermind, but it's a valuable enough basic skill that lacking it is worth mentioning.

[Lord Revan]

That said if Wikipedia is correct Bin Laden studied in fields where knowing English is pretty much a must, well being able to read English is a must, still as pointed out before he wasn't speaking to Americans but to Muslims and therefore it would be beneficial to speak in Arabic as most Muslims have at least a small degree of knowledge in Arabic and to them it would feel more like your talking to them directly.

[LadyTevar]

That said if Wikipedia is correct Bin Laden studied in fields where knowing English is pretty much a must, well being able to read English is a must, still as pointed out before he wasn't speaking to Americans but to Muslims and therefore it would be beneficial to speak in Arabic as most Muslims have at least a small degree of knowledge in Arabic and to them it would feel more like your talking to them directly.

THIS IS MY POINT

Again, Hersh was supposedly quoting a SINGLE ANONYMOUS SOURCE for his assertion that Bin Laden was not "the true mastermind", and Hersh based that SOLELY on the fact that Bin Laden did Not Speak English, and therefore COULD NOT BE the Mastermind, there must be an ENGLISH-SPEAKER hiding behind Bin Laden, giving him ideas.
Which is as culturally racist as you get, and makes me question anything that Hersh now has to say.

[Lord Revan]

That said if Wikipedia is correct Bin Laden studied in fields where knowing English is pretty much a must, well being able to read English is a must, still as pointed out before he wasn't speaking to Americans but to Muslims and therefore it would be beneficial to speak in Arabic as most Muslims have at least a small degree of knowledge in Arabic and to them it would feel more like your talking to them directly.

THIS IS MY POINT

Again, Hersh was supposedly quoting a SINGLE ANONYMOUS SOURCE for his assertion that Bin Laden was not "the true mastermind", and Hersh based that SOLELY on the fact that Bin Laden did Not Speak English, and therefore COULD NOT BE the Mastermind, there must be an ENGLISH-SPEAKER hiding behind Bin Laden, giving him ideas.
Which is as culturally racist as you get, and makes me question anything that Hersh now has to say.

There seem to be the idea of "isn't speaking English therefore they cannot speak English and therefore they're too stupid/uneducated" even though there's countless people who can speak English well enough to understood clearly and are very well educated, but still don't speak English when it's not needed.

This bigoted to the extreme as it kind of assumes that all educated people use English and only English and never would use any other language.

It's just one more reason why this whole accusation raises more red flags about itself then a communist/socialist rally.

[Broomstick]

Also, someone like an engineer (among a half dozen other professions I could name) might only know the English relevant to his field, which can be significantly different than conversational English. Such a person knows what they need to know to extract professional knowledge (they might read English far better than they speak it, perhaps) but would not normally converse in the language.

[Solauren]

Elfdart

I want you to stop and consider something about your position.

The entire claim gets down to someone going "The US blew up the pipeline, I know cause some guy I know told me."

Irregardless of reputation of the person making the statement, In just about any non-biased court of law, the claim would be thrown out for lack of evidence.

You don't like the United States? Fine. Join the fan club.

You think the US could be behind the Noordstream Sabotage?
Post proof, or discuss it as a theory and don't get upset when people poke holes in your pet theory.

You want to support Conspiracy Theory bullshit? Remember the board's moto, and don't bitch about it.

[Lord Revan]

Also, someone like an engineer (among a half dozen other professions I could name) might only know the English relevant to his field, which can be significantly different than conversational English. Such a person knows what they need to know to extract professional knowledge (they might read English far better than they speak it, perhaps) but would not normally converse in the language.

According to Wikipedia (not the best source I know) Osama Bin Laden studied English in Oxford for at least 1 course, so it's likely he able to read/speak English to some degree outside of the professional degrees he studied in his native country of Saudi-Arabia.

That said we can't say how well he could have spoken it as he probably used Arabic in his daily life (both due being a native speaker and most the people he interacted would know Arabic as well).